Proffered treatment for what allegedly ails me was, to be charitable, ineffective. At 3:30 this morning I finally fell asleep in the big chair in the living room, and after two and a half hours of fairly fitful slumber, if little thrash, I woke up dizzy and disoriented, and stumbled twice on the way to the bathroom.

As the phrase goes, I can’t go on living like this. In fact, this may be even more appropriate a description than I thought: while combing through the insurance materials online  I still haven’t received anything resembling a card from the bastards  I discovered that they will not cover my antihypertensives unless I throw away 120 days of my life experimenting with stuff that may or may not work, but which will cost less. It is precisely crap like that which will drive us into some form of government-inflicted health care; right now, the system we have is about as popular as Rod Blagojevich, and for many of the same reasons.

What irks me is the piddling sum involved: the pharmacy sells these things at $73 for 30 tabs. If I’m saddled with a $60 copay, the insurance weasels are out a mere thirteen bucks.

I am on this stuff because (1) it works and (2) it has no interactions with the six or seven other drugs I have to take to keep myself from turning into a gelatinous blob oozing across the kitchen floor.

Is $60. your usual copay? Ours is $40. I have one prescription now that they charge me $80. for. They have also tried their durndest to get me to switch to something else (cheaper). They don’t work and this does. Try impressing that upon them and listen to them try and tell you that it is the “same thing”.
Regardless whether it does the job or not is the real issue. All they are concerned about is their bottom line.

What has happened is they now have a list of medications and regardless of price if your prescription is on this list you are going to have problems with the insurance. Most of them are up there in cost. Some aren’t (like yours).
Good luck!

fillyjonk »

What I hate is the companies that shift which medications are “approved” and which are “unapproved” from year to year. While I can afford to buy the one medication I take regularly whether it’s “approved” or not (and the particular formulation of the particular brand is the best at controlling the symptoms I have), it still irks me that they can change so whimsically.